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Storyline
Jack Diamond and his sickly brother arrive in prohibition New York as jewellery thieves. After a spell in jail the coldly ambitious Diamond hits on the idea of stealing from thieves himself, and sets about getting close to gangster boss Arnold Rothstein to move in on his booze, girls, gambling, and drugs operations. Written by
Jeremy Perkins <jwp@aber.ac.uk>
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Taglines:
The Wildest Mobster of the Roaring Twenties!
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Did You Know?
Trivia
Italian certificate : - 16.
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Goofs
When Legs Diamond is shot, he falls between two beds face down with his shoes pointed down. The next shot shows him face up.
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Quotes
Teenager:
[
Staring at corpse]
That's not Legs Diamond.
Cab Driver:
[
Grabs kid by the collar and forces him to have a good look]
Take a look at that, kid. That's Legs Diamond and don't you ever forget it.
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Soundtracks
"Your Eyes Have Told Me So"
(uncredited)
Written by Walter Blaufuss,
Gus Kahn and
Egbert Van Alstyne See more »
Ray Danton brings a suave cold charm to the title role of this film about the Roaring 20s gangster. The usually wooden Danton, nattily attired with a pair of shoulder holsters, cuts quite a figure as he shoots, seduces and betrays his way to achieve his ambitious goals.
Jack Diamond and his handicapped brother come to the big city in search of a new start as jewelery thieves. This venture get's him jailed but it fails to dampen his desire for fast cash and he begins to rob crooks in order to eliminate police involvement. He catches the eye of big time gambler Arnold Rothstein, fixer of the 1918 World Series. He goes to work as a bodyguard for Rothstein who is later murdered thus expediting Leg's rise.
Budd Boeticher directs economically, benefiting both pace and story line as well as Diamond's sharkish style self assuredly delivered by Danton. He also does a nice job of keeping Diamond's involvement in the rub out of Rothstein ambiguous (an unsolved murder to this day) as he attempts to follow the factual outline of his career. In addition Lucien Ballard's photography gives the studio interiors and exteriors an extra touch of grit and noir in one of the better gangster pictures made during a period when the genre was in a bit of a funk.